Muni broadband sucks (was: New minimum speed for US broadband connections)

Wed Jun 2 19:55:20 UTC 2021

Hi,

Glass and Copper (and aluminum) infrastructure is a natural monopoly, 
similar to water service.

It was purely by chance IMHO that we ended up with Cable Co and Tel Co 
internet competing with each other in many locations in the US.

That was aided by the following:

  * Technology for TV over telephone wire really did not exist at the time
  * Telcos were not very interested in PayTV at the time
  * Technology for Telephone over Coax really did not exist at the time
  * Cable Co's were not very interested in Telephone service at the time

Basically they were viewed as two very different businesses, with very 
different physical plant needs.  Now both of them are primarily fiber 
based, with Coax or Telephone Wire (in many cases you can not even call 
it twisted pair) as the very last interconnect segment.

We can all agree with hind sight (and a lot of us at the time) that the 
Tel Co's made some very stupid decisions. Perfect example being 
installing remote DLC/SLC units when the demand for analog dial tone 
skyrocketed, along with more copper in the ground/on poles in 
neighborhoods. At first this blocked ADSL deployment until remote DSLAMs 
were installed, then it turns out most were NOT close enough to enable 
VDSL2 or g.FAST for the majority of customers serviced by them. They 
were both "in the way" and "too far away" at the same time. If instead 
of the DLC/SLC units the Tel Cos had instead favored (with the correct 
tariffs) moving any residential customer who requested a second POTS 
line to ISDN BRI, they would have saved all of the physical plant work, 
which has turned out to be a horrible investment.

We learned a long time ago that water lines, sewer lines, and electric 
lines were natural monopolies, and should either have a municipal 
granted license, or should be run by the municipality.

The next generation last mile will almost have to be a similar structure 
for Layer 1 and a form of Layer 2, with Layer 3 and above services being 
sold by anyone who wants to provide the service. This will collapse 
Cable Co, Tel Co, and independent ISPs onto the same physical 
infrastructure.  This will work well for dense locations of course.

Wireless ISPs, and LEO based ISPs will still of course have a major role 
to play for at least several decades if not more.

I also agree entirely that most consumers will "pay the ISP too much" 
for service they "don't need".  I have worked with several people who 
were paying for Gigabit Cable Service, with 30Mbit upload, or in 
Spectrum territory, they had 400Mbit service with 20Mbit upload, and the 
"downgrade" was 200Mbit service with 10Mbit upload. Being as that was a 
single individual with very low upload needs beyond video meetings, I 
recommended he downgrade to the 200/10 service. In all cases, a proper 
WiFi network and wireless offloading has made far more difference vs 
upping the cable co speeds. My personal sweet spot right now is 100/20 
business cable or 100/100 small business fiber (for the few spots that 
have GPON service in Tucson). The next tier of business cable is 200/20, 
and I find the extra 100Mbit download really does not change much. If it 
was 200/30 or 200/40, I would probably consider it.

None of the realities of current "needs" and "wants" really are going to 
change the financial need to consolidate physical networks. 
Unfortunately instead of it being a Layer1/2 provider and L3+ 
competition, most Internet networks in new developments around here are 
being deployed as physical layer and service monopolies. The home 
builder will make an alliance with Cox, Comcast, or CenturyLink, and 
then the others will not build out physical plant in the community.

-Harry

On 6/2/21 11:50 AM, William Herrin wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 2, 2021 at 9:46 AM Andy Ringsmuth<andy at andyring.com>  wrote:
>>> Muni broadband sucks for several reasons but the most important one is:
>>>
>>> Competition. Municipal broadband eliminates it. If it's not obvious
>>> why, feel free to Google how competition and monopolization impact
>>> product quality. It's a pretty universal trait.
>>>
>>>
>>> If you were to structure muni broadband to enhance competition rather
>>> than limit it, you might get a different result. For example, if
>>> municipalities installed and leased fiber optic cables to every
>>> structure but didn't provide any services on those cables, relying
>>> instead on third parties directly billing the customer to do so, it
>>> could work out as well as having municipalities pay for roads and
>>> letting people buy their own cars and trucks to use on them.
>> In many municipalities, you can choose your electricity provider. And yet there are not multiple companies running power lines to every house.
> Hi Andy,
>
> Take a closer look at how that works. Your electricity vendor is also
> the one who chooses which generating companies to buy from. You're
> stuck with the municipal distribution network (just like you're stuck
> with the municipal roads) but you have a choice in who you buy
> electricity from and how you structure it. Want a flat rate? There's
> someone who will sell you that. Want a discount for load shedding?
> There's someone who will sell you that too. Carbon neutral? Someone
> for that too. You can bet wrong and suffer for it (see: Texas winter
> storms) but mostly you get better power service.
>
> A comparable Internet setup would be where the municipality implements
> a local network distribution service and then you buy from the
> Internet provider of your choice. He bills you and passes the muni's
> distribution portion onward. He makes his own arrangements for
> upstream Internet or whatever services he elects to vend. Max speed,
> flat rate, 95th percentile, IP addresses, etc. are controlled by the
> competitive Internet provider who, if you're unhappy with him, could
> be replaced.
>
>
>> I’m generally all for private enterprise. But when those private enterprises take public money, don’t do what they are supposed to do with it, squander it, and nothing changes, again and again, well, what’s that definition of insanity?
> Yes it is, which is why I'm also against subsidizing large carriers to
> build out monopoly networks.
>
> Regards,
> Bill Herrin
>
> --
> William Herrin
> bill at herrin.us
> https://bill.herrin.us/
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